1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to testing a person for presence of a selected substance, and more specifically to an automated system for testing for selected drugs that includes an immediate test result by visual analysis using video conferencing technology between a remote device and a central computer.
2. Brief Description of Prior Art
Employers today often require perspective employees to undergo pre-employment drug screening, to test for use of selected illegal drugs. Testing for drugs is done not only to ensure that an employer is hiring employees whose work will not be affected by drug use, but also to screen for drug use in other environments. For example, selected employees in jobs with a high degree of responsibility may be regularly screened for drugs, such as truck drivers being screened to ensure they are not using drugs while driving and law enforcement officers being screened for drugs to ensure their actions while working are not affected by drug use. Further, those undergoing drug use rehabilitation may undergo regular if not daily drug tests to ensure that they are no longer using drugs.
Typically, a perspective employee or other test subject is asked to travel to a controlled environment such as a medical facility or laboratory for drug screening. The employer for example must then allow the employee time off work in order to travel and take the drug test, and then must wait for results to be sent back, and also must undergo the expense of transportation and laboratory testing for each subject tested for drugs. Persons on rehabilitation programs are required to regularly “report” to controlled areas for drug screening which is inconvenient at best, and often difficult due to transportation restraints and the like.
What is needed is an inexpensive, efficient and reliable means to undergo drug testing that will provide an immediate indicator of whether the test subject has used drugs recently, and is a valid indicator of drug use. What is further needed is such a drug testing method that avoids the expense and inconvenience of requiring the test subject to travel to an off-site environment.
As will be seen from the subsequent description, the preferred embodiments of the present invention overcome shortcomings of the prior art.